


our victory (lies at the end of a road not taken)

by magicasen



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, New Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Civil War (Marvel), M/M, New Avengers Vol. 1 (2004), Stony Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 16:58:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1825567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicasen/pseuds/magicasen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nova brings news of a threat that can unite even the bitterest of enemies at the height of a war under the same banner. It should be the worst-case scenario, but Tony couldn't really tell you that.</p><p>(Based on What-If? Annihilation)</p>
            </blockquote>





	our victory (lies at the end of a road not taken)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the square: "canon: au verses and what if...?" for my cap_ironman bingo card.
> 
> This fic lifts the canon events and much of the dialogue from the issue itself, so I would recommend reading that first if you haven't done so yet!
> 
> Thank you to [Teyke](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Teyke) for the beta!

Cap crosses his arms and looks out the window. Tony's just waiting on the big melodramatic sigh, and moves forward before his teammate can get into even more of a sulk.

“You did great out there, Cap. Really riled up the crowd.”

“Did I?” Cap takes a moment to reply before tilting his head at him. The wings on his cowl bounce with the motion. It's sort of adorable, and it's a bit damning how that stray thought doesn't even give Tony pause anymore.

“Like it was your beck and call. If Captain America believes in us, who are we to prove him wrong?”

Cap's lips purses and he turns back toward the window. Tony mentally kicks himself for the pep-talk failure.

“I'm glad it came off that way.” Cap laughs a little nervously. “Can I let you into a secret, Shellhead?” he blurts out after a moment.

Tony blinks first, then gulps. Leave it to Cap to tell Iron Man his secrets while Tony can't even offer up his own. Tony nods, and, realizing Cap might not even see it, says “sure thing.” He hesitates, then adds “winghead” for effect.

Cap doesn't react to the affectionate nickname, only reaching back with a hand and rubbing the back of his neck and looking vaguely uncomfortable. “I look for the best in people. It's always there.” Cap pauses, but Tony gets the distinct impression he isn't looking for a response and remains silent. “I know it is, but other people don't. So sometimes, even when I can't see it myself at that moment, I tell them I do.”

Cap shrugs a little. “You just have to tell people what they need to hear at times. It'll work out in the end, won't it?”

Silence hangs over them, and maybe sometimes this could be a comfort, but not right here or right now. “So that's your secret,” Tony muses, and ventures for a more daring tease. “Lies dressed up as blind optimism?”

Cap's eyes shoot to his. “Not blind,” he pouts, but his eyes seem amused and there's a twitch at the corner of his lips. “I should have known you weren't going to be the one for halfhearted reassurances.”

“Which is exactly why you bared your soul to me in the first place.”

“I suppose so.” Cap's shoulders relax and when he looks out the window, he stands with his hands on his hips with a small smile on his lips. The patented Captain-America-sans-shield pose, meaning something Tony said worked.

Tony wonders how much time he'll spend in the future trying to perfect that combination of words to actions to gestures to bring that look back to Cap's face.

* * *

“What are you waiting for, Steve?” Tony forces the taunt past cracked lips. “Finish it.”

The shield's already raised, but it's now that Steve's eyes steel over. It's a strange sight to behold, with one eye hidden behind the faceplate and the other exposed, even if code continues to line his entire field of vision. Extremis should have served as a distraction, but the reality of what Tony has wrought slams into him like a sledgehammer regardless, powerless in the face of Steve Rogers's unbridled hatred.

There's a dazzling light behind his executioner, and fuck everything if he's going to go out like a cliché, following the light at the end of the tunnel.

He can't quite comprehend it when Steve turns around and lowers the shield. “What...?” His voice is as disbelieving as Tony feels.

Above them, a giant bug – no, a vessel shaped as a giant bug, because those are certainly explosions going off in it. The observation is confirmed by Extremis, and lifeforms don't explode in _parts –_

The vessel crashes into a nearby skyscraper, and dust and debris balloons out in a cloud. Someone must use their powers to preventing the rubble from raining down on everyone gathered, but Tony doesn't take note of who; all eyes in the vicinity are fixed on the familiar yet alien figure floating down toward them.

“We're safe for the moment,” Nova declares with the authority of one in charge. “That was an isolated scout ship. My guess is it was sent to test Earth's defenses.”

“Scout ship?” Steve's already skipped right past denial straight to anger, wonderful. “Scouting for what? What the hell is going on here?”

“You heard Nova, it's safe. We can go back to beating the crap out of each other.” Peter's attempt to dispel the choking atmosphere fails when Nova's face grows horrified.

“You were fighting each other? In the middle of New York!?” He glances between them, as if waiting for someone to deny the accusation. “I heard you were having problems. I didn't know you'd all gone totally insane!” He waves his hand as if to stop someone's protest, although none of them have spoken. “Save it! I want to hear their excuse for this.”

“It's complicated,” Tony offers, knowing how weak it sounds before he says it. “There was an incident. Civilians were killed and it left the public with legitimate concerns.” He can't help his eyes from sliding over to Steve, who looks back at him from the corner of his eye. “We...the government – ” Tony falters and reaches up to the remaining pieces of his faceplate, which sinks back into the helmet with an urging finger, but Steve has already taken over the explanation.

“Congress passed an act requiring all superhumans to reveal their identities and register with the federal authorities.” Steve's still watching him, Tony senses. “Some of us are opposed to registration and – ”

“ _You're squabbling over your secret identities!?_ ” Nova interrupts, and from the sound of it, his voice could turn hysterical any given moment. “Do you have _any_ idea what's coming?”

“Actually, no.” Reed steps forward. “Maybe you should enlighten us.”

Nova begins, and the story is ludicrous from the first breath. Annihilus leading an invading army from the Negative Zone, to exact vengeance on the universe and take back what they rightfully believe is theirs. Great empires fallen, and the entirety of an elite corps decimated. But the sheer scale of the horror isn't truly realized until he rattles off individual casualties to the annihilation wave: Thanos. Silver Surfer. _Galactus_.

“More people than you can conceive of, more worlds than you can count have been devastated, turned into barren lumps of rock,” Nova finishes to a crowd of silence. “The heroes of Earth are the last hope of stopping Annihilus. Ronan the Accuser is convinced that you would never be capable of acting in unison and even if you were, that would fail. I told him he was wrong.” He looks at Steve first, then at Tony, as if he already surmised how this conflict circles around the two of them. “So...is he wrong?”

“If this is all true – ” Steve turns to Tony, facing him.

“There's an alien space ship sticking out of that building.”

“Then I suggest we call a truce,” Steve replies.

“Agreed.”

It's unfair how frighteningly easy it was to stop their war.

* * *

All non-essential feeds were shut down hours before – `26 hours, 12 minutes, and 37 seconds ago`, Extremis informs him – and the hell, it's already been over a day of fighting. His mind doesn't quite believe it, but his body does. The back of his head is throbbing and his muscles ache in a way that hasn't happened since before his body was renewed and rewritten.

Tony takes down a stray bugger (`species name:``Arthrian` – whatever, he'll call them what he wants – Carol coined the term, and you didn't need have read the book to understand the nickname). The bugger must have been a faulty one, weren't these things part of some sort of hivemind – and then Tony spots T'Challa caught under a car shoved on its side. When Tony flies down and inspects the damage, he sees that T'Challa has been saved by being trapped just by the side-view mirror, the little resistance it offers preventing the car from falling all the way and outright crushing his sternum. It's a smaller vehicle, only two-door, but nearly two tons of pressure would stop any man in his tracks. Tony places his fingers in the positions that would offer the most leverage and pulls up. T'Challa scrambles out the moment Tony lifts the car enough to allow him the space to move.

“You need to retreat,” Tony tells him, because he's surprised T'Challa can still stand, to tell the truth. “They have a safehouse back in – ”

“I know where it is, Stark,” T'Challa interrupts. He looks at him for a second before his gaze drifts away. “Thank you.”

Tony doesn't have the time to watch T'Challa stagger away, so he spares him a glance before taking off again. There's no time to think about where they had been days before during the war, and what about that – he still thinks of Registration as the war, when there are monsters from the Negative Zone wreaking havoc all over the world. There's also no time to dwell on how fucked up that is.

* * *

The armor is more resilient to the jaws and pincers of the buggers than the skintight outfits the rest of the superhero community sport. So Tony throws himself head-first into the fray, drawing the enemy's fire and aggression.

It only works well at first. But now, all the buggers swarm him in groups, some of them attempting to hold his limbs down while the others grapple at the joints in his armor. Earlier, one of them managed to wedge a pincer partway between two panels before Luke Cage ripped it away and crushed its head with a decisive stomp. Of course the damn creatures adapted; the Skrulls and Kree would never have fallen to a mindless horde no matter how endless or seemingly unstoppable.

It doesn't matter, because the time the armor buys him is time that the others don't have. And the others he fights side-by-side with include anyone with the right amount of appendages. A part of Tony still can't believe how alliances have changed (it's not the same part of him that revels in the feeling.)

So he learns to ignore the pounding behind his eyes as he learns to dread the pain more than fresh waves of invaders. If the right resonant frequency can shatter even the surface of a neutron star, ten billion times the strength of steel – Tony fights with renewed vigor. He – the armor (he _is_ the armor) – Tony can't be so brittle.

* * *

He finds T'Challa's body next to Daredevil's and Bullseye's, and his mind betrays him with a stray thought bemoaning the futility of saving him. T'Challa had just been married and damn it, what about Storm –

Tony looks away and Extremis aids in clamping down on unnecessary emotional reactions. They had fought to save their world. It's a good way to die.

(His mind flashes to the enraged expression on Steve's face, and he doesn't allow himself to think of how close he had been to meeting his end for the same reason.)

* * *

Day three (`hour fourteen, minute forty-two, second thirte-fourte-fift-`). The Inhumans have joined the battle, and Black Bolt's scream strips the exoskeletons off Annihilus's forces. Even the royal mutt is as invaluable as any other hero, transporting the wounded to the safest places their forces can muster or bringing buggers to his master to be shredded to pieces.

Tony's flying (it gives him a better field of view past the endless smoke and dust, and it also makes him more conspicuous) but the swarm of buggers below ignore the red-and-gold beacon in the sky. He makes a sharp turn and spots their target.

Steve meets his eyes somehow and they watch each other, even as the bugs scuttle frighteningly quickly toward Steve. Without taking his eyes off Tony, he bends one knee and places the other behind him, arranging himself in a familiar front stance as he reinforces the shield with his forearm. Steve has no intention of using his shield, Tony realizes, and the instant clicks.

It takes Tony seconds to land on the ground next to Steve. The bugs scurry even faster, a high-pitched clicking sound drowning out all else. But they're incidental, shoved to the back of his mind as Tony holds one of his arms steady with the other and fires toward the white star in the center of the disc. It reflects off easily, and Steve takes no time to rotate it perfectly in time and in angle to catch the buggers in the maelstrom of the blast.

The death throes are over and the swarm is just a pile of corpses when Steve finally turns toward Tony. Extremis is left blank as it analyzes Steve's next senseless, unnecessary movement. It takes Tony too long to realize Steve had raised his arm in a salute, and it's even longer before he raises his own hand in acknowledgment.

Steve nods curtly and heads away; Tony takes off. The tag team worked like clockwork, like always. It also only took seconds, but Tony only realizes it now. For that moment, time halted in a standstill.

As Tony swoops by and blasts a hole through one of Annihilus's minions attempting to pounce on Spider-Woman, he tries to ignore how this might be the most right he's felt since the start of this damned war.

* * *

The first thing Tony does when the last creature falls is fling open all his communication networks. Mandarin, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic – frantic words and images of nations newly liberated from the annihilation wave bombard him, and it's too much, too overwhelming. For the first time since he received it, Tony cuts off signals not out of necessity, but weakness.

Millions dead on initial counts, even more displaced, and it's only days after the fact that attempts at relief efforts can finally begin.

There's a somberness over the heroes when they gather together in the same place this had all begun. Nova congratulates them on their bravery and dedication. The reckless kid Tony had once known wouldn't have had to force this cheer and optimism; seeing that is is even more unsettling than knowing how war turned him into a jaded soldier. But what's not forced in Nova's speech is his deep-seated pride, and Tony is suddenly stupidly, breathlessly grateful that for this, Richard Rider is their leader and rallying point.

Tony and Steve are not the ones deserving of such a place in a war so much greater than the one they had fought and led in. The SHRA sounds almost laughable at this point. It doesn't escape Tony that an unprecedented crisis was one of the possibilities he had foreseen that would convince the government to throw the bill out.

Despite the victory, there is no surprise on their end when an alert from S.W.O.R.D. hours later confirms what they already knew, when they realized Annihilus was not among the invasion forces.

The first wave had been a mere prelude, and the next one is on the outskirt of their solar system.

* * *

“My race once unwittingly caused the destruction of an entire world. We swore never again to intervene in the affairs of others. But Annihilus will not stop until he has eliminated every trace of life from this universe.” The Watcher's demeanor sinks, and his eyes bear into all of them at once. “In spite of its many flaws, I have come to love and respect the human race. The thought of a universe without you in it is more painful than I can bear.”

Tony's glad there's no reason for him to speak, because the sorrow in the words makes a dangerous lump form in his throat. Tony once believed the Watcher didn't have emotions, that he served solely as a living record of the events of the universe; he couldn't have been further from the truth. The Watcher probably already experienced a universe where humanity died out, and the regret in his voice, enough to forego his own goal and purpose, is something Tony probably couldn't hope to comprehend. But even the taste of it is unforgivably bitter.

The Watcher gives them their fail-safe, get-out-of-extinction-free card: a terminus device to draw all antimatter into a void of emptiness. It's a fitting fate for the one who would secure his hold over the universe by reducing its life to true nothingness, but the way the Watcher describes it still manages to send a shiver down Tony's spine.

“I see how this works.” Reed's voice is pinched as he examines the machine. “But the power it generates is too destructive. We can't possibly allow it to operate for more than a few minutes. The annihilation wave will have to be in the immediate vicinity if we are going to have any hope of sending them through the portal.”

“Then we must hope I was convincing enough,” Medusa answers. How strongly does Annihilus believe in the selfishness of life? And how little does he value sacrifice? The questions hang unanswered in the air.

Tony watches out the window of the royal family's Attilan palace, following the path of the wave that he's observed for the past few minutes. Their speed is chilling. Enough so that the sight of the wave turning abruptly around toward the moon, toward _them_ , renders him speechless for a second, and when he recovers he pours his emotion into his shout. “The wave has turned away from Earth! It's heading this way!”

“Annihilus took the bait. He actually believed we would betray you.”

“Does anyone else see a Catch-22 here?” Reed stretches and distorts his neck away from the device for eye contact's sake. “Once I initiate the device, we'll have forty-five minutes to get clear, which presents us with a glaring problem – Annihilus will arrive before activation. So what's going to stop him destroying the device?”

“I am,” Nova says without a second of hesitation.

“You can't,” Reed answers automatically. His expression softens. “If you stay, you'll die.”

“I'm the last of the Nova Corps. I failed to save them. I failed to save Xandar.” Nova rattles off his deepest regrets in one short breath. “Earth is all I have now.”

“You have nothing to feel guilty for. You don't have to do this.” Reed gestures with his hands as he implores.

“Someone does.”

“Then I'll stay too.”

“Not _you_ , Professor Richards. You have a family.” Nova's voice wavers on the last word. “Black Bolt and Medusa have their people to lead.”

“And you have the collective memory of the Xandarian culture within your mind.”

“No. Not anymore. I have passed the Xandarian Worldmind to a friend. Someone I trust above all others.” Nova manages to shoot down Reed's counter-arguments, and Reed wilts for a second before growing serious again.

“But without the full Nova Force, can you hold off Annihilus alone, even for a few minutes?”

“I...” Nova hesitates, finally left without a rote reply. “I'm not sure.”

Tony knows when he turns his head what he'll see. The look in Steve's eyes says he's already decided as well. Steve can't see what Tony's expression looks like right now, but they've been together for so long there's no way Steve can't know Tony's answer as well.

A family, an empire. What did Steve and Tony have? What was their legacy? The answer is there before Tony even really thinks about it: the Avengers. They had done a stellar job of tearing that apart well enough on their own, sudden alien invasions not withstanding.

So, Tony nods at Steve. They move at the same moment and each place a hand on Nova's shoulders.

“Sorry, Nova. Can't let you hog all the glory,” Steve says with a smile.

* * *

“Tony.”

They're standing at the entrance to the terminus device and their salvation. Three of them versus countless thousands – it doesn't take a futurist to predict their fates. Tony can hear a shrill shrieking from the wave as it advances toward them.

“This is probably as good a time as any to tell you.” Steve's gaze doesn't falter when Tony meets his eyes, but his voice does. “Back on Earth, before the aliens showed up.” He pauses for a second too long. “I would never – ”

In his final moments, Steve lays himself vulnerable and open.

“ _You just have to tell people what they need to hear at times. It'll work out in the end, won't it?”_

His words from so many hazy years ago take on a sudden, crushing clarity.

“I know,” Tony lies. “I saw it in your eyes. You were going to wimp out.”

Steve breaks eye contact and looks down; Tony must have said the wrong thing. Then again, that could be the script of their entire war. Tony might be able to convince people to believe in him, but he could never make them believe in themselves. Not like Steve can. Tony only wishes he could have done something right at the very end.

“You know what?” Steve begins softly. “That whole Registration thing.” Out of nowhere he smiles, and it might be the most dazzling Tony has ever seen. It reminds him of the smile Steve had shown him when they stood on the bridge of the Helicarrier a lifetime ago, on the eve of a new era. It had taken Tony's breath away in a way he had finally understood the meaning of. “I still think I was right.” Then Steve puts out his hand.

Part of Tony wonders if he should hesitate, reconsider, especially after the last time they had been in this situation, but he only realizes that after he has already taken Steve's hand in his own.

Nova's hand covers their own a moment later. Nova's facing the end of the world alongside them, but Tony fails to register anything besides the look on Steve's face and the firm, sure grip of his hand.

“Gentlemen, it's been a privilege,” Nova says.

More than that, it has been everything.

When they turn and look toward the sky, the wave looks like it's anchored in place among the stars. It's an illusion, of course; they're racing toward them faster than Tony's eyes can believe.

“Here they come. How many, do you think?” Steve asks with the air of someone who wouldn't react any differently no matter what the answer.

It's good that Extremis could perform the estimations for Tony, because there are some things that leave even his mind blank. Annihilus's wave from the Negative Zone does that to a person. “Two hundred thousand, give or take.”

This is how it works out in the end, and Tony finds he doesn't mind at all.

“Is that all? For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble.” Tony finally hears the young, wise-cracking, reckless New Warrior he once knew in Nova's words. Nova jumps into the air, the signal to begin as he leads them in their charge.

Steve and Tony follow together.

**Author's Note:**

> The idea of Steve telling people what they need to hear comes from Captain America v6 #10.


End file.
